View of the tunnel where the proton detectors are located. Credit: TOTEM collaboration

In a 17-mile circular tunnel underneath the border between France and Switzerland, an international collaboration of scientists runs experiments using the world's most advanced scientific instrument, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). By smashing together protons that travel close to light speed, particle physicists analyze these collisions and learn more about the fundamental makeup of all matter in the universe. In recent years, for instance, these experiments showed data leading to the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the Higgs Boson.

Now, a team of high-energy experimental particle physicists, including several from the University of Kansas, has uncovered possible evidence of a subatomic quasiparticle dubbed an "odderon" that—until now—had only been theorized to exist. Their results currently are published on the arXiv and CERN preprint servers in two papers that have been submitted to peer-reviewed journals.

"We've been looking for this since the 1970s," said Christophe Royon, Foundation Distinguished Professor in the KU Department of Physics & Astronomy.

The new findings concern hadrons (the family of particle that includes protons and neutrons), which are composed of quarks "glued" together with gluons. These particular experiments involve "collisions" where the protons remain intact after the collision. In all previous experiments, scientists detected collisions involving only even numbers of gluons exchanged between different protons.

"The protons interact like two big semi-trucks that are transporting cars, the kind you see on the highway," said Timothy Raben, a particle theorist at KU who has worked on the odderon. "If those trucks crashed together, after the crash you'd still have the trucks, but the cars would now be outside, no longer aboard the trucks—and also new cars are produced (energy is transformed into matter)."

In the new paper, researchers using more energy and observing collisions with more precision report potential evidence of an odd number of gluons, without any quarks, exchanged in the collisions.

"Until now, most models were thinking there was a pair of gluons—always an even number," said Royon. "Now we measure for the first time the higher number of events and properties and at a new energy. We found measurements that are incompatible with this traditional model of assuming an even number of gluons. It's a kind of discovery that we might have seen for the first time, this odd exchange of the number of gluons. There may be three, five, seven or more gluons."

The KU researchers explained the odderon can be seen as the total contribution coming from all types of odd gluon exchange. It represents the involvement of all of three, five, seven or other odd number numbers of gluons. By contrast, the older model assumes a contribution from all even numbers of gluons, so it includes contributions from two, four, six or more even-numbered gluons together.

At the LHC, the work was carried out by a team of more than 100 physicists from eight countries using the TOTEM experiment, near one of the four points in the supercollider where proton beams are directed into each other, causing billions of proton pairs to collide every second.

KU researchers said the findings give fresh detail to the Standard Model of particle physics, a widely accepted physics theory that explains how the basic building blocks of matter interact.

The scheme of the TOTEM detectors. Credit: TOTEM
"This doesn't break the Standard Model, but there are very opaque regions of the Standard Model, and this work shines a light on one of those opaque regions," said Raben.

Physicists have imagined the existence of the odderon for many decades, but until the LHC began operating at its highest energies in 2015, the odderon remained mere conjecture. The data collected and presented in the new paper was collected at 13 teraelectronvolts (TeV), the fastest scientists have ever been able to collide protons.

"These ideas date back to the '70s, but even at that time it quickly became evident we weren't close technologically to being able to see the odderon, so while there are several decades of predictions, the odderon has not been seen," Raben said.

According to the KU researchers, the TOTEM experiment was designed to detect the protons that are not destroyed by the collision but are only slightly deviated. So, the TOTEM particle detectors are placed at a few millimeters from the outgoing beams of protons that did not interact. By comparing current results with measurements made at lower energies using less powerful particle accelerators, TOTEM has been able to make the most precise measurement ever.

The co-authors compared the ratio of signatures from collisions at various energies to establish the "rho parameter," one measure that helped build evidence for the possible presence of odderons.

"If you go to really high energies, there are signatures of the behavior of beams collided at a high energy that can be measured," said Raben. "But there are different types of high-energy growth signatures. Up until now, we've only had to think about one type of high-energy growth behavior. Essentially these quantities might change as a function of the amount of energy. The rho parameter is essentially measuring the ratio of one signature to another of this high energy growth."

Such measurement of the rho parameter is owed to the shared work, collaboration and key contributions, on the detectors' hardware and in particular on the physics analysis, by several postdocs and senior physicists.

Aside from Royon, KU personnel involved in the new TOTEM findings include postdoctoral researcher Nicola Minafra, who earned a CMS achievement award this year, and graduate students Cristian Baldenegro Barrera, Justin Williams, Tommaso Isidori and Cole Lindsey. Other KU researchers participating in the work are Laurent Forthomme, a postdoctoral researcher also based at CERN and working on the CMS/TOTEM experiments, and graduate student Federico Deganutti, who works with Raben on theory.

"Our students come from many different nations," said Royon. "KU is a working at the frontier of new things, and we expect big results in the coming months or years. Other research efforts include looking for an extra dimension in the universe, but for now we're just looking at the data."

Royon said the TOTEM experiment's fast-timing detectors used to measure the time-of-flight of protons in the LHC could see many applications in medicine, space physics with NASA to measure cosmic rays, and desalinization of seawater, a concept that the KU physicist is exploring with Mark Shiflett, a Foundation Distinguished Professor in the KU School of Engineering.

Gluons, the glue-like particles that ordinarily bind subatomic quarks within the protons and neutrons that make up atomic nuclei, appear to play an important role in establishing key properties of matter. But right now, no ...

(Phys.org)—You may think you've heard everything you need to know about the origin of mass. After all, scientists colliding protons at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Europe recently presented stunning evidence strongly ...

Following seven successful months of colliding proton beams with each other in the search for new fundamental particles, the LHC today began colliding proton beams with beams made up of heavy ions – the nuclei of lead atoms.

Recommended for you

In microelectronic devices, the bandgap is a major factor determining the electrical conductivity of the underlying materials. Substances with large bandgaps are generally insulators that do not conduct electricity well, ...

Since the early 20th century, nearly all of Earth's glaciers have been retreating or melting. Glaciers cover 10 percent of the planet's land area and contain 75 percent of our fresh water. Moreover, the water from melting ...

Researchers in Eindhoven have developed a new type of low-energy, nanoscale laser that shines in all directions. The key to its omnidirectional light emission is the introduction of something that is usually highly undesirable ...

A pair of researchers, one with the Public University of Navarre, the other with the University of Bristol, has developed a system of holographic acoustic tweezers that can be used to manipulate multiple objects simultaneously ...

In order to evaluate a material's ability to withstand the high-radiation environment inside a nuclear reactor, researchers have traditionally used a method known as "cook and look," meaning the material is exposed to high ...

9 comments

I realize that what is being seen is evidence of odd numbered gluon interactions. Yet I wonder if this is also evidence of multi-quark particles in which more than 3 participate, like in normal hadrons. 4 quark or more combinations have been previously hypothesized, solid evidence of their existence would be ground breaking, even if they were not directly detected.

I realize that what is being seen is evidence of odd numbered gluon interactions. Yet I wonder if this is also evidence of multi-quark particles in which more than 3 participate, like in normal hadrons. 4 quark or more combinations have been previously hypothesized, solid evidence of their existence would be ground breaking, even if they were not directly detected.

I think you will find that the energy level of 13TeV observed for the proposed particle is what places it in the running as an odderon.

I will admit I'm out of my depth here but I have a question one of you folks might be able to answer. If those protons are traveling at almost the speed of light, wouldn't that mean they are time shifted somewhat? What effect does that have on the results when they come to an abrupt halt when they collide? Or would it have any effect?

@24volts the effect is enough energy is released in the collision to create new particles. or to use the article's silly analogy:

"If those trucks crashed together, after the crash you'd still have the trucks, but the cars would now be outside, no longer aboard the trucks—and also new cars are produced (energy is transformed into matter)."

I will admit I'm out of my depth here but I have a question one of you folks might be able to answer. If those protons are traveling at almost the speed of light, wouldn't that mean they are time shifted somewhat?

In what way does relativistic speed introduce a time shift? (more precisely: what exactly do you mean by "time-shift" in this context)

Time dilation is with respect to what an observer sees. Within the reference frame of something moving at that speed everything appears normal

E.g. if you were to sit in a box with a measuring apparatus for measuring the speed of photons and that box were to be accelerated to close to c, then for you photons would still travel at c and to you any clock you have with you would appear to tick as usual. You would not notice any kind of weird effects (other than a load of high energy radiation coming from the front if the box isn't particularly well shielded)

And here it can be seen that science, to this day, has not understood what is matter, what is the energy and what and how it originates. Here are some conclusions about gluons, and science does not understand what are gluons and how they occur. The basis for all "finds" in the particle collision (the highest-protons) is the invention of new particles that are not constant. And why ? This knowledge would explain all the dilemmas in the teaching, but science will not understand that these pipes are not empty, but are filled with the substance AETHER, from which matter is formed. Scientists use strong magnetic fields, and they do not understand and do not know that gluons with Aether cause magnetism.

And when they increase the speed of the collision and the magnetic field, these newly formed particles are not an integral part of these "dead and broken protons", but it formed the "irritated" Aether in which they increased the magnetic field and thereby violated the natural laws of forming matter.The more they increase the speed of the particles and the magnetic field, they will get more and more "weird" particles as "Frankenstein shapes" and think that they are the basis of the formation of matter and the universe, which is a great MISCONCEPTION !!

Please sign in to add a comment.
Registration is free, and takes less than a minute.
Read more

Click here to reset your password.
Sign in to get notified via email when new comments are made.